When doing pulls (low/clean and high/snatch), are you supposed to use your arms to actively pulling the bar up? Or should the pulls' mechanics be the same as the full lifts but without you going under the bar?

In my opinion the arms should be loose like ropes or chains and kept straight at all times when doing pulls. using your arms to pull the bar higher is counter productive and will only slow the acceleration of the bar.

Paperclip wrote:When doing pulls (low/clean and high/snatch), are you supposed to use your arms to actively pulling the bar up? Or should the pulls' mechanics be the same as the full lifts but without you going under the bar?

Thanks!

I would think that in doing pulls to improve a part of the full lift, performing the exact same movement as would be done in that section of the full lift is important.

Bending your arms (and thereby increasing your strength in doing the lift with the arms) isn't going to transfer to an improvement when doing the lift correctly (by shrugging and not rowing the bar).

When you pull the bar up your loading your arms = you can't whip them fast to receive the Clean. Also when it's heavy you won't be able to pull the bar up, but instead your chest will be lowered and meet the bar = bad!